more-in The Delhi Jal Board (DJB) on Monday approved the relaunch of an earlier scheme to encourage the regularisation of illegal water connections. After a Board meeting chaired by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, the DJB said it approved the scheme for a period of three months. “There are a large number of unauthorised water connections in various parts of Delhi, especially in the unauthorised colonies. This not only causes revenue loss to the Board but such connections are also utilising water that cannot be accounted for. They also contribute to contamination,” the statement said. Though the DJB had been trying to reduce the amount of non-revenue water, there was still a large number of illegal connections, leading to the need for the scheme to be relaunched, the DJB said. The DJB had reduced the charges for regularisation of illegal connections from ?18,644 to ?3,310 in 2015 to encourage people to switch to legal connections. The scheme was active till late last. Apart from that, the DJB approved the proposal for recovery of development charges from consumers before sanctioning of new water connections for each dwelling unit separately. If the property has a single owner, then the charges would be recovered from the single owner. Meanwhile, four Bharatiya Janata Party councillors who are members of the DJB sat on a two-hour dharna outside the Delhi Secretariat against what they claimed was lack of adequate redressal of their complaints and queries related to the alleged scarcity of drinking water. Jai Prakash, Satpal Malik, Jagat Lohia and Rajiv Choudhary, the party said in a statement, had raised questions about the monsoon preparedness and water supply situation, but did not receive satisfactory replies from the Chief Minister, who is the chairperson of the Board.

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